CO 63 EWRIAH pulled into gate C46 at around 7:30pm tonight and ended CO's 29 year DC10 love affair. It had been hoped to have a water cannon salute, but it was almost dark by then so it didn't happen. The aircraft (ship 082) will ferry out to MHV on Monday as CO 9976 along with ship 064 as CO9974 and ship 081 from EWR as CO9975 and thats it.

ya know, as much as I always hated to work on DC-10's I actually have to admit that I am going to miss them. No more hearing them scream into the gate. No more hearing that distinctive sound as the engines start up and all whine in unison.....ahhh..the DC-10.....

Man, that's alot of ships going to Mohave in one day.
The place must be going nuts taking in all these arrivals, and from one carrier too. I wish I was there, but then again I'm glad I'm not, if you all know what I mean. Regards.

"Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." --Ben Franklin

anyone have the tail numbers of the MD-80's that are being sent to MHV? I am curious as to how many are actually being sent. I haven't even been able to find otu at work. Some people I talk to have said only a few while others have said all. I Hope it's all of them cause I hate them. I sure am not going to miss working on those! Give me a 737-800 any day!

The 80 is the last of the real classics CAL has. I'll sure miss riding the jumpseat and watching those guys at work.
I taxied past one of the 10's today operating with a ferry flight #. I've never seen a 10 taxi so slow. They pilots sounded a bit sad over the radio. Can't blame them for taking in the last few hours on the 10. For many of the captains and the SO's, this was their last few hours in an airliner at all as many are retiring with the 10.

Was the retirement sped up because of 9/11? I was talking to a pilot from HNL-IAH in August and he said that they were supposed to go in April. I feel so sad for the flight engineers who are over 60 and can't fly anymore. God bless their hearts.

yes the retirements were sped up because the terrorist attacks. The 10's were not supposed to be full retired until next year. When I initially read about the 10's being phased on on Oct 1, it was said it was going to be temporary but being as they were going to be phased out in a few months, that really makes no sense. No MD-80's were supposed to be phased out for quite some time so maybe you will see some of them come back in the future. I haven't heard any details about that.

Godbless,
I guess it's because there are still a good bunch of DC-10s around. Northwest still operates them, plus FedEx has a good number of them in their fleet, as opposed to the L-1011 which only ATA operates now.

Trans Swede,
Agreed The DC-10 is far more elegant. Although I still like the L-1011 as well, since it's different from the boring twin engine jobs of nowadays...